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IMPORTANT LINKS:

Special MetaStock deal for our listeners – Get 3 months for the price of 1 on a subscription to MetaStock, an amazing (and affordable!) market analysis workspace and news service, as well as a chunk of money off an annual subscription if you decide to subscribe annually.

Vesper Capital Psyquation Link – click here to find out more about Michael’s company Psyquation, Mike will know you’ve come through us so his team will take extra good care of you.

SHOW NOTES:

Today Vesper Capital co-founder Jon de Wet is speaking with a chap by the name of Michael Berman. Mike is currently the CEO of an online robo trading coach and emerging money management incubator platform called Psyquation, and before that he’s had a string of accomplishments behind him such as managing a hedge fund for more than a decade, being a director for a public company when he was still in his 20s, and has worked for a number of leading South African investment banks. Mike has a bachelor of commerce, a masters of science and a PhD in economics – behavioural finance.

Now in the interests of full disclosure but also to tell you a bit about Michael’s current company, we started working with Psyquation recently when we realised how important it was ensure we were keeping an eye on the total historical and real-time risk exposure of Vesper Capital. In brief, Psyquation takes traders’ goals and provides live feedback on how their strategy is faring against those stated goals. Everything from style drift to exposure, to, in our world, Portfolio Risk.

Mike’s business is now moving into fund allocation, and aides fund managers in allocating their capital based on the behavioural and quantitative performance of traders in the Psyquation pool.

This is not the place to go into how Psyquation works, but we will say it’s the most impressive thing we have found by far and it’s really opened our eyes to managing risk effectively and to ensure we are putting together a fund that is going to weather choppy markets and ultimately be successful in the long term.

In this episode, Jon and Mike touch on things like

• Different trading styles and which ones in particular that Psyquation deals with
• The differences between retail, or home traders, versus professional traders
• Technology used in trading and where it’s going
• The biometric feedback that Mike is currently working on
• Conventional wisdom versus what the evidence shows you have to do to be profitable
• And they also speak more about the Psyqation business and what it does specifically to help traders

LINKS & FURTHER READING:

Michael made reference to macro analyst Jim Rickards whose book Currency Wars – The Making of the Next Global Crisis he recommends to those wanting to understand the macro picture.

Psyquation (Vesper Referral)

Mike’s Twitter – @mickson

 

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We’re honoured to welcome you to episode three of the Vesper Capital Podcast, where we find the smartest investors, entrepreneurs, fund managers, traders… you name it… and interrogate them on what made them successful, so you can shortcut becoming better at managing money, and growing your wealth.

We are finishing off our discussion today with Chris MacIntosh of Capitalist Exploits fame, among others.

Chris is a macro investor, but what we find interesting about him is he’s done it all from working at the biggest investment banks, to running businesses, to being in property, to taking up angel investing and then VC investing… he really is an all-round investor in the true sense of the word. Chris specialises in profiting from opportunities he sees that have a tonne of upside potential, with minimum risk, something he has done consistently across asset classes and markets. And that’s why he’s here today, to share some insight.

In this episode, we speak about:

• Warren Buffet, of course, it wouldnt be an investor podcast without mentioning buffet now would it
• Capital allocation – which assets Chris thinks are attractive for these times we’re in
• How the familiar benchmarks that everyone uses in investing are risky and should be used with caution
• Chris’ recommendations on books and study material for people who want to develop their investing
• The birth of his blog capitalist exploits, and many more things that give you insight into this clever guy.

This show is sponsored by MetaStock, which is in our opinion the most comprehensive market analysis tool available and allows you analyse any market, comparing trends, identifying hidden correlations and allowing you to find asymmetric opportunities like we’ve been discussing with our current guest.

It’s a realtime news source with split second economic releases and analysis, putting you as close as you can get to emerging trends as they happen. Best of all, MetaStock is easy to use – it’s simple to construct a workspace, add charts and assets and news feeds with a few clicks. It’s the equivalent of Reuters Eikon or the Bloomberg terminal, but for a fraction of the price.

Even better, we have a special deal our listeners can get that is not available elsewhere, where you can get 3 months for the price of 1, and then a great discount if you want to continue to become a subscriber. Simply click here to find out more.

 

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Today we’re in the thick of it! this is part two of a three part series we’re doing with Chris MacIntosh, someone we were very lucky to speak to about all sorts of things ranging from trading examples to some of the bigger and more nebulous issues like what the hell is going on with central bank policy and putting the headlines aside, what does it mean for you and me and the future.

These days Chris would best be described as a macro investor, but he’s done it all from working at the biggest investment banks, to starting and running multiple businesses, to building a property portfolio, to becoming an angel investor and then venture capitalist… he really is an all-round investor in the true sense of the word. Chris specialises in profiting from opportunities he sees that have a tonne of upside potential, with minimum risk, something he has done consistently across asset classes and markets. And that’s why we lured him out onto our show.

In part 1 of our chat, Chris spoke about his formative years, and the journey that has led him to where he is now.

This is part two, which is a little different, and in this episode we speak about a tonne of stuff such as

• The way Chris identifies opportunities in the markets and assesses risk
• How psychology interferes with common sense and fundamentals
• How Chris learned to spot opportunities as a kid growing up in South Africa, and how the same opportunities are spreading through the developed world now
• Why he is seeing sentiment traders and analysts starting to look at the market differently, and why they are moving towards longer term investments
• We also speak about Counter party risk, and what you can do to minimise as much risk as possible
• And Chris also walks us through a trade he made and breaks down his thinking

Enjoy!

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We’re launching the Vesper Capital Podcast with a 3-part investigation into the mind of Chris MacIntosh, macro investor in search of asymmetric investment opportunities and follower of the demographic trends that are going to shape the future’s investment opportunities. You might also know Chris from his blog & podcast Capitalist Exploits, which we’ve been following for quite some time.

We reached out to Chris to be our first guest on the show because of his broad range of experience as an investor. Chris has worked at investment banks like JPM and Lehamn, has been a full time trader, has been an entrepreneur in property markets in different countries and has even been a venture capitalist and angel investor. No doubt, he’s an “investor” in the true sense of the word – looking for and successfully identifying opportunities regardless of market or asset class.

In this episode, Chris talks about his formative years and what led him to where he is today. Enjoy!